Unspoiled Reef in the Red Sea

Unspoiled reef in the Red Sea

by B. N. Sullivan

This is the kind of scene that divers' dreams are made of: a pristine reef in a remote location.

We have been asked many times to name our favorite dive destination.  While it's difficult to choose just one location, we would have to include the Brothers Islands in the Red Sea among our top choices.  The remoteness of these two tiny specks, situated about 67 km (about 42 miles) off the eastern coast of Egypt, has helped to keep their lush reefs unspoiled.  The middle-of-nowhere location also attracts many large pelagic fishes of the sort not often seen around near-shore reefs.

The only way to get to the Brothers Islands is via a live-aboard dive boat.  It takes a full day (or overnight) at sea for the boats to reach the Brothers from coastal ports like Hurghada, Safaga or Quseir.  The voyage to the Brothers and back to the coast can be punishing due to rough seas, and dives there can be challenging due to unusually strong currents and choppy surface conditions.  But for experienced divers, the reefs along the near-vertical walls on the flanks of both seamounts (Little Brother and Big Brother) afford some of the most spectacular underwater scenery on the planet.

I photographed this dreamy, tranquil reef scene at Little Brother Island.   We think it illustrates why this location, in our experience, is a contender for Diver Heaven.

Fine perch for a sea turtle

Green Sea Turtle perched on the coral at Pulau Sipadan, Malaysia

by B. N. Sullivan

Sea turtles have a knack for finding comfy resting places on the reef.  Earlier this year I posted a photo of a turtle who had plopped down on a bed of soft corals to take her rest.  Here we have another Green Sea Turtle, perched this time on a table coral that jutted out from a steep bank.

We spotted this turtle at the outset of our dive, and as we passed by the same spot about an hour later on our way back to the boat, she was there again -- or still! -- surveying the scene.  She looked so comfy and at ease that we reckoned this must be her regular post.  We know from having observed the behavior of individual turtles in Hawaii over periods of years that each effectively "owns" a particular spot on the reef, returning to the same rocky shelf, or cavelet, or depression in the coral day after day over a long span of time.

To us, this turtle looked a bit like a sentry posted in a watchtower.  From the outcropping, she  had an unobstructed view of the entire bank -- left, right, up to the surface, and down into the gloomy depths -- a fine perch for a turtle.

Sea Plumes in the Caribbean

A Caribbean Sea Plume (Pseudopterogorgia sp.)

by B. N. Sullivan

In earlier posts (such as this one about the Red Sea) I have noted that underwater scenery varies a lot from one region to the next.  Fauna characteristic of a given area can provide instantly recognizable clues to the location of a photo.  For the Caribbean and adjacent tropical waters, one of those clues is the presence of Sea Plumes like the one in the photo above.

Sea Plumes can be found on patch reefs and along dropoffs throughout the Caribbean, as well as some areas of the south Florida coast, the Keys, and in the Bahamas [which are technically in the Atlantic, not the Caribbean].  They are a type of Gorgonian soft coral, in the same taxonomic Order as Sea Fans and Sea Whips.

The polyps of Sea Plumes tend to be arranged in rows along their branchlets.  The colony has a furry or fuzzy appearance when the polyps are extended, as in the photo above.  When the polyps are retracted the branchlets have a smooth, stick-like appearance.  Sea Plumes like to establish themselves in areas where there is some tidal current or other flow that facilitates feeding.  To feed, the polyps catch plankton and other nutrients that pass over them.

Sea Plumes come in an assortment of colors -- mostly greens and browns, but also purple.  The color depends on the presence or absence of zooxanthellae in their tissues.

Some species grow more than a meter tall.  The one in the photo above, which I photographed at Cayman Brac, was about a half meter tall and its branches spread nearly a meter wide.

A Splash of 'Velvia' Color on a Sipadan Reef

by B. N. Sullivan

In the days before digital photography, we shot all of our photos as transparencies (slides).  From about 1990 onward, my preferred film for use underwater was Fuji Velvia (ISO 50).  We jokingly referred to it as "Disneychrome" because it rendered such dazzling colors.  Also, it was developed using the E-6 process, available just about everywhere including on many live-aboard dive boats.  No more having to send the Kodachrome off for processing and waiting, waiting, waiting for the results.

I do not miss most aspects of film photography.  I certainly don't miss having to return to the boat or shore to change film after, say, 36 shots [you can't change film underwater!], nor do I miss having to wait until the film was developed to see if the images I captured were the ones I wanted.  But, once in awhile I get nostalgic for the incredible color saturation and fine grain that only Fuji Velvia seemed to yield.

The photo above was shot using Fuji Velvia.  The transparency was later scanned for online use.  The subject was an unusually 'fluffy' crinoid -- species unknown -- posing for us near a stand of equally fluffy-looking and very colorful Nephtheid soft corals. The location was Barracuda Point at Pulau Sipadan, Malaysia.

Stony Corals in the Red Sea

Red Sea hard corals

by B. N. Sullivan

This is one of my favorite reef photos.  It was taken in the Red Sea at an area of Ras Mohammed known as Shark Observatory Wall.  When I took the photo, it was a sunny day and the water was very clear.  I was not very deep beneath the surface, but I was positioned below the corals. I was shooting up toward the surface with a wide angle lens, using the sun as a back-light for the coral.  Pictured are several species of stony corals common to the Red Sea, of the genera Acropora and Stylophora, and some Millepora (which is actually a Hydrozoan).

At Peace in the Deep Blue

Diver swimming along a deep wall in the Red Sea

Looking through some old underwater photos, I came across the evocative image above. The photo had been squirreled away for years, but the moment I looked at it  memories of the peace and serenity of deep dives flooded my mind.  It's quiet down there in the deep blue.

Soft corals on Woodhouse Reef

by B. N. Sullivan

After posting the previous article about the container ship that ran aground on Woodhouse Reef in the Tiran Straits, I decided to search our image archive for photos I had taken at Woodhouse that might show the beauty of the reef prior to the recent accident.  In particular, I was looking for a 'reefscape' image, rather than a shot of an individual creature.  I came across the above image of assorted soft corals on slope of  the reef, photographed a number of years ago.  My notes did not specify the exact location on Woodhouse, so I can't say it is the spot where the ship damaged the reef.

While browsing through our underwater photos from the four  Tiran reefs, I noticed that most of the photos were from Jackson reef and Gordon reef, with fewer from Thomas reef and the fewest from Woodhouse.  How could that be?  A quick check of our dive logs confirmed that among the Tiran reefs, we have dived on Woodhouse least often.  I also noted that most of our dives at Woodhouse were done as one-way drift dives, riding the tidal current along a face of the reef slope.  That fact may account for the relatively small number of images from Woodhouse in our Red Sea photo archive.  During drift dives on tidal currents, there are fewer opportunities to pause to take photos.

Maybe we need to do a return trip to the Red Sea, just to take more photos on Woodhouse reef? (Sounds like a mission!)

Sachiko Point, Bunaken Island

What: A soothing image of a tropical coral reef.

Where: I took this photo while diving at Bunaken Island, Indonesia.

Click on the photo to enlarge so you can see all the different types of corals.

Warm Geothermal Springs on Puako Reef

by B. N. Sullivan

The Big Island of Hawaii, where we live, is volcanically active. Kilauea Volcano, in the southern part of the island, has been erupting continuously since 1983, sending lava down its flank and into the ocean. Mauna Loa, another active volcano on the island, erupted most recently in 1984, and could erupt again at any time.

The coastline at Puako, where we dive most often, was formed by an old lava flow from Mauna Loa. The layers of hardened lava flows run well beyond the shoreline, extending seaward below the surface of the ocean to form the volcano's submarine flank. The old lava flows also form the substrate for the wonderful coral reef that fringes that particular section of the western coast of the Big Island.

Molten rock -- called magma -- moves along constantly underground beneath the volcanoes, and far below the reef and the sea floor. Here and there, cracks have formed in the substrate beneath the reef. When that happens, sea water seeps down and mixes with hotter fluids closer to the magma. That warmed sea water then rises back up toward the surface.

About 15 years ago, we discovered a couple of spots on the reef at Puako where this geothermally heated water rises up through chimney-like vents in the reef, creating warm springs. The photos on this page show one of those vents. I know it doesn't look very impressive, especially in the first in the photo, but we find these sources of volcanically heated water on the reef quite fascinating. [Click on any of the photos for a larger view.]

We first noticed this one, and another about 50 meters away, by their appearance. These vents are relatively small, but they are eye-catching to divers. They are situated in a broad coral garden dominated by a certain species of finger coral (Porites compresa). In fact, in that area, that species of coral is so dense that it uniformly and completely covers the substrate for acres.

Amidst that large stand of finger coral a couple of spots stand out, because they look different. There are deep holes, literally, in that dense forest of finger coral, and the holes are surrounded by a crust of very different looking corals.

It was the unexpected interruption of the field of finger coral that first caught our eye. We swam over to have a better look at these anomalies, and that's when we discovered that the crusty looking corals actually were arrayed around holes in the reef. When we hovered directly over the holes to peer inside, we felt the warm water emanating from below. We understood right away that these holes were venting geothermally heated water. It was an exciting find.

On one occasion, we showed the vents to a marine biologist friend who was visiting and diving with us. When she returned to Honolulu, she in turn told some oceanographer friends about these geothermal vents in Puako Reef. The news traveled through the grapevine, I guess, because we then got a call from someone at NOAA who asked if we would be willing to serve as dive guides to some researchers who wanted to have a look at the vents the next time they visited the Big Island.

We agreed, of course, and a party of three divers arrived in Puako several weeks later. We led them to the vents, where they took some photos, and some water samples. Once we were back on shore, they said these vents probably were not very important. In any case, they did say that they would let us know what was in the water samples, but then we never heard from them again.

We concluded from the silence that, indeed, 'our' little geothermal vents were not scientifically important. Still, we always have enjoyed this little underwater curiosity on our reef.

In this final photo, at left, our friend Dan is poking his head and shoulders into the larger of the two vents. I had asked him to pose for a photo near the mouth of the vent, to provide a reference for the size of the opening. Dan decided spontaneously that this posture would demonstrate the size better than simply posing beside it! (Thanks, Dan.)

In fact, the photo also demonstrates something besides the size of the vent opening. It should tell you that the water emitting from the vent is warm, but not hot, else Dan would not be able to actually enter the space like that! Using the temperature indicators on our dive computers, we have measured the temperature of the water coming out of the vents on many occasions. It varies, but always is in a range between 27-29 C (about 81-83 F). In other words, it is always several degrees warmer than the ambient water temperature, which typically ranges from about 24 C (75 F) in late winter to 27 C (80 F) in late summer.

Some of the reef critters seem to have discovered these vents. On numerous occasions we have spotted sea turtles hanging out around the edges of the vents. We also have seen any of several species of crab, and even the odd slipper lobster, snuggled down into the hole, clinging to the stony side of the vent, and at times we have seen clusters of sea urchins ganged up along the rim.

We, too, have taken advantage of this relative warmth, especially after long, deep dives. Making our way to our exit point, we can choose a route via one of the vents, and take turns hovering in the warm water for a few minutes. Ahhh.

So many fishies in the sea!

What: A swarm of Scalefin Anthias (Pseudanthias squamipinnis).

These colorful little fish are ubiquitous on Red Sea reefs.

Where: I took this photo while diving  along a steep dropoff 

at the Brothers Islands, in the middle of the Red Sea.

Click on the photo to enlarge.

Jerry Dives the Wall at Shark Reef

Where: I took this photo of Jerry swimming along the wall at Shark Reef,
Ras Mohammed, at the tip of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula

[Click photo to enlarge.]

My previous Wordless Wednesday posts.

Hard Corals on a Shallow Red Sea Reef

[Click photo for larger view.]

My previous Wordless Wednesday posts.

Bubble Coral

by B. N. Sullivan

We have displayed a lot of photographs of reef scenes on The Right Blue. Reefs are formed by corals. The stony corals in the order Scleractinia are the reef-building corals that secrete calcareous skeletons for their polyps, which accumulate over time to become the hard framework of reefs.

We have posted quite a few photos of different kinds of soft corals, ranging from 'broccoli coral' and other Nephtheids to sea fans. Soft corals generally are more colorful and showy, and so they often are more attractive subjects for photography, but without hard corals, there would be no coral reefs. Until now, we haven't really focused much on stony corals, so we thought it was time we introduced some of the more interesting ones to readers of The Right Blue.

Some hard coral colonies form massive lumpy structures that look much like rock. Other stony corals form into fingers, pillars, antler-like branches, or even structures that look like plates. The ridged ones commonly referred to as 'brain coral' belong to the stony coral group, too.

One of the more unusual-looking stony corals we know about is Bubble Coral, an organism in the family Caryophyliidae. The first photo on this page shows a large colony of Bubble Coral on a reef in the Red Sea. If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you will see clusters of what look like bubbles -- thus the common name. Those bubbles, or 'vesicles' as they are properly called, are little balloon-like structures with rubbery skin that inflate during the day.

At left is a macro photo of the vesicles. The species in these photos, Plerogyra sinuosa, is quite common in the Red Sea. Usually it is found on steep slopes or on the vertical walls of underwater cliffs at depths of about 15 meters (50 feet) to about 40 meters (130 feet). I shot the first two photos on this page at Ras Mohammed, a well-known reef at the tip of the Sinai Peninsula.

I took the third photo on this page during a night dive off the coast of Tiran Island, which is situated at the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba. Although we are not 100% certain, we believe that the organism in the photo is Bubble Coral of the same species as the photos above. Unfortunately, we did not get to return to the same spot in daylight to verify that this was indeed Plerogyra sinuosa.

At night, Bubble Coral looks very different than it does during daylight hours. The Bubble Coral's vesicles deflate, exposing its tentacles and its mouth.

In the photo at right you can see what appear to be the partially deflated vesicles, as well as the little tentacles. The tentacles can sting.

By the way, the vesicles of this species usually are whitish, often with striations of grey or very pale blue. They are translucent, and can look slightly opalescent. We have seen Bubble Coral elsewhere with a golden or greenish tinge. Next time we'll show you some more Bubble Coral, this time from Indonesia. The Bubble Coral we saw there had some 'extras' that led us to think of it as Bubble Coral Plus.

Wordless Wednesday #25 - A Deep Reef in the Red Sea

[Click photo for larger view.]

My previous Wordless Wednesday posts.

Wordless Wednesday home page.

Wordless Wednesday #21 - Sea Fan at Manado Tua, Indonesia

[Click photo for larger view.]

My previous Wordless Wednesday posts.

Wordless Wednesday home page.

Broccoli Coral

by B. N. Sullivan

This is the second in a series of posts intended to showcase the many colors and shapes of soft corals in the taxonomic family Nephtheidae.

In the first post I mentioned that these corals appear in a countless array of colors. Most grow as tree-like structures having a stem, or stalk, with many branches. Near the ends of the branches are clusters of polyps which open like tiny flowers when they are feeding. When the polyps are closed, they look like little beads.

In fact, when the polyps are retracted, these corals -- especially the greenish colored ones -- resemble broccoli plants, and "Broccoli Coral" is one of the common nicknames given to this type of coral. One look at the photo here, and you'll understand why. (Click on the photo to enlarge.)

Although this kind of coral can resemble broccoli in appearance, it definitely is not a plant. It is a colony of animals -- the coral polyps. The polyps arrange themselves in bundles at the ends of the rubbery stalks. Each polyp has exactly eight short, feathery tentacles. In order to feed, the polyps open and close their little tentacles, grabbing tiny nutrient particles that are suspended in the water.

Many Nephtheid coral colonies contract during daylight hours, making them look a bit shrunken and withered. They expand to feed at night, plumping themselves out and extending all of their little tentacles like bouquets of flowers at the tips of their stalks. For this reason, many of the best photos of these corals are taken during night dives.

I took the photo on this page in the Red Sea, during daylight hours. You can see that the polyps are tightly shut. In tomorrow's "Wordless Wednesday" post, you'll see some macro photos of this same variety of soft coral.

Corals of Many Colors - The Nephtheidae Family

by B. N. Sullivan

This past week our Wordless Wednesday post was a macro (ultra close-up) photo of a red Nephtheid soft coral. Quite a few people who commented on the photo indicated that they had never seen such a coral, or even imagined there was a coral of that color.

The truth is that corals in the family Nephtheidae are among the most beautiful things a diver will see underwater. They come in a seemingly endless number of color variations. Some of these corals have colors that are are very rich, like that in the image I posted last Wednesday. Others have softer colors, like those in the photo on this page. Nephtheid soft corals also come in assorted pastels, and some are so pale and delicate as to be translucent.

I have hundreds of images of these soft corals, and I must have promised myself dozens of times to stop taking pictures of them. How many photos of soft corals does one person need to take?! But I always end up relenting when I see still another color shade that I haven't photographed before. I can't seem to resist them.

The next several posts will display a sampler of Nephtheid soft corals in their various colors. Most will be macro shots that show not just the colors, but also the structure of this lovely type of marine life. We hope you will enjoy this look at some of our "corals of many colors."

In cruise mode -- with a little help from our friends

Our month-long vacation is behind us, but before we begin with the next round of diving adventures, we'd like to acknowledge some friends of The Right Blue.

Several of our fellow bloggers have written reviews and articles about The Right Blue in their own blogs:

Matt Keegan, a.k.a. The Article Writer, featured The Right Blue in a piece he wrote entitled Blogging Can Be Thankless Or Tremendously Rewarding.

Fellow Hawaii-based blogger Charley Foster referred his readers to The Right Blue in an article on his blog, Planet Kaua'i.

A photo of Bobbie and a post about The Right Blue appeared on the blog run by Samish Divers of Bellingham, Washington.

Fellow 'baby boomer' Rosie wrote a very complimentary review of The Right Blue on her blog, Rosie's Boomer Review.

Penguin lover Wiinterrr featured our article about the Blue Penguins of New Zealand on A Penguin's Tale.

We appreciate their role in spreading the word about The Right Blue, and helping us to grow. We encourage our readers to visit these excellent blogs, too.

Some of our fellow bloggers honored us with awards. In fact, in mid-October we received two awards on the same day!

Dawn at AntiBarbie.net gave us a Beautiful Blog Design Award "For having the best pictures EVER!" Thank you, Dawn. You made us blush.

Later the same day, we heard from Jos at NoDirectOn (not: NoDirection), who gave us a Community Blogger Award. The award "celebrates people who reach out and make the blogging community a better one."

Then, a few weeks later, Jos also gave us a "Be the Blog" badge. "This badge is for bloggers who make their blog their own, stay with it, interact with their readers, and have fun!" Many thanks, Jos, for both of those awards. We greatly appreciate the fact that you appreciate The Right Blue!

Kathy, who displays her excellent work at Photography by KML, gave us an Amazing Blogger Award. Thank you for the recognition, Kathy.

Speaking of Kathy, she also is one of our most faithful commentators. She and Bernie Kasper of BFK Photography not only comment on our stories and photos more frequently than anyone else, their comments on Bobbie's photos are especially appreciated, since both Kathy and Bernie are such accomplished photographers themselves.

Among our other frequent commentators are the members of the Photography Group at Blog Catalog, and our fellow Wordless Wednesday participants. We thank them for returning to The Right Blue again and again and keeping the conversations lively.

Traffic to The Right Blue has steadily grown over the course of our first six months, thanks in part to readers such as Thomas Laupstad and Mark Stoneman, who have submitted the site and particular articles to Stumbleupon. We're sure that this has resulted in an expanded readership for The Right Blue, and we are grateful to them.

We are truly touched by the continued positive and enthusiastic response to The Right Blue, and we thank all of our readers and commentators for making this venture seem worth doing!

Wordless Wednesday #5 - Happy Halloween

[Click photo for larger view.]

My previous Wordless Wednesday posts.

Wordless Wednesday home page.

Current events: Water that moves

Take a look at the photo on this page, and tell me: If you had to give it a one-word label, what would that be?

Non-divers might think something like 'pastels.' To a diver that photo screams current! That's 'current' as in moving water. [You can click on the photo for a larger view.]

Not only are the soft corals in the photo bending like wheat in a windswept field, but all the little fishies are facing in the same direction. That's what little fishies do in a current -- they point their little noses into the current and wiggle their tails for all they are worth, just to stay in place.

Good divers recognize and understand currents in the ocean, and know how to deal with them. The two most common factors relating to the kinds of currents that divers are likely to encounter are wind and tides.

Currents relatively close to the surface can be caused by wind blowing across the water. When wind blows across the surface it pushes a certain amount of water ahead of it. The stronger the wind, and the more open and unsheltered the surface, the stronger the surface current. Most wind-driven surface currents in coastal areas are only a meter or so deep -- a good thing to know. For instance, if there's a wind-driven surface current, a diver will probably have an easier time swimming back to a boat or a shoreline exit point by swimming a couple of meters beneath the surface instead of on the surface.

Some currents are caused by changing tides. The water mass flows toward shore during an incoming tide (called flood flow), and sucks back out to sea during an outgoing tide (called ebb flow).

Currents can be enhanced by underwater topography and the shape of a coastline. Think of the way water in a river or creek flows around rocks and other obstructions. The same thing happens underwater. If there is some relatively large feature in the path of the water mass during a tidal shift, for example, the water will flow around it and the current usually will be stronger and more turbulent closest to the obstruction. The same thing happens where there is a bottleneck -- a place where the flow of water gets squished between two large obstructions.

Currents encountered by divers most often move horizontally, but there are places and times where vertical currents are encountered. Upwellings occur when deeper water rises toward the surface. Downwellings occur in some places, too, but a more common type of downward current a diver may encounter happens where there is a dropoff of some sort. For example, a tidal ebb flow may literally spill over an underwater dropoff, just like a waterfall spills over a cliff on land.

Some currents are gentle, while others rip along with incredible force. Next time I'll tell you about some very interesting experiences we've had dealing with currents while diving.